Essay Abstract

The origin of life problem has defied explanation for more than a century. There are many different aspects to this problem, the extremely complicated biochemistry of living organism playing an important role here. I argue that the complex biochemistry is obscuring the more philosophical issues which I argue are actually rather trivial. By explaining the origin of life in terms of the relevant physical processes where the very detailed biochemistry is largely disregarded, we may get to a better broad perspective of how life came into being in our solar system.

Author Bio

Saibal Mitra is an educator in mathematics and physics. He has written a few peer reviewed articles on subject such as dark matter (e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0408341) experimental mathematics (e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/0708.1763). Photography is a big hobby of mine, I like to take big pictures like this one: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/High_resolution_png_version_of_Tromsø_winter_panorama_from_Fjellheisen.png

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Saibal -

This is an interesting and intelligent discussion of the origins of life in the Solar System, presenting an ingenious answer to the problem of constructing complex molecules. So I'm sorry to say that I find it difficult to believe in. There are a couple of big problems I see, that I'm sure you've considered.

The first is that to keep a self-sustaining self-catalyzing system going requires more than a fairly steady input of the right complex molecules. There also needs to be a large and reliable energy throughput, in a form that's usable to the system rather than destructive, as solar radiation would tend to be. I briefly mention some other requirements in Section 2 of my essay.

I'm certainly not an expert in the field, but I found Nick Lane's book The Vital Question interesting enough to read through a couple times. He takes as a basic clue the fact that all cellular life-forms on Earth store power through the rather complex and unlikely mechanism of proton gradients across a membrane. This (along with other factors) leads him to the notion that the first proto-cells may have arisen in alkaline thermal vents in the ocean, and he does a good job pulling together evidence.

The other problem I have is that to survive interplanetary collisions, you're expecting your "microbes" to be amazingly tough while still maintaining the very complex and delicate functionality needed to keep on producing exactly the same collections of complex molecules. I would think it would take quite a long evolutionary path to produce such singular entities, and it's hard for me to imagine that could happen in the environment you describe. But of course there are no obvious, likely scenarios for the origin of life, so your theory could be right, though I'm not sure what kinds of evidence we could look for to support it. In any case, I much appreciate the clarity and thoughtfulness of your argument.

Thanks - Conrad

    Thanks for your comments! There are indeed quite a few issues with my proposal that have yet to be worked out in more detail. But I gave a very general perspective on how to get to large biomolecules that can take part in interesting catalytic reactions.

    I guess I could have explained things a bit better and in more detail. What happened was that two days before the deadline I took the bold step of ditching the essay I was working on and starting all over again with an essay on abiogenesis. Unfortunately, this has led to quite a few typos and badly written sentences in my essay (submitted about an hour before the deadline without proofreading).

    Now, about the collisions, note that as pointed out in this recent article, the largest impacts that happened during the Late Heavy Bombardment period were an order of magnitude larger than previously thought. Impacts involving proto-planets that are, say, 250 km across are fiundamentally different than impacts involving 10 km diameter asteroid. In the latter case, very little of the debris escape the planet that is hit. In the latter case, not only will large amounts of the ejecta escape, a significant fraction of these will escape without having been significantly affected by the impact.

    When pointing out just how large the KT impactor was, people will often say that when that asteroid hit Earth, the back side of it was still 10 km up in the air. But now picture this proto-planet hitting the Earth, when such a thing impacted the Earth in the LHB period, the back side would still be at the height were our low Earth orbit satellites are!

    Then what happens is that the impact lasts 25 times longer than a KT-like impact, you'll then a get a lot more rebounding debris from the impactor that have not made contact with the Earth. While this is still a violent process, when it comes to transferral of microbes, there are far more opportunities compared to smaller impacts. One is then led to considering the transferal of microbes to Earth via fragments created by an impact on another body, say the Moon.

    I'll read your essay; it may be interesting to make a list of all the essays on this topic, there are a few more I've seen but they can be hard to find among all the listed essays here.

    One thing I should have explained better is the fundamental difference between my proposal and the current approach where you try to get to large molecules with interesting properties in some given environment at some uniform state (but not in thermal equilibrium; thermodynamically the creation of large molecules can be allowed, if a microbe could replicate there, then that means that the creation of a microbe lowers the Gibbs free energy, however the kinetics do not favor the creation of a microbe without a microbe being put in there from the start).

    In the current approach the kinetics will keep the state of the system that initially contains only simple molecules in such a state with only simple molecules, the probability that something more interesting would appear is vanishingly small, and even if that were to happen, that fluctuation will just die down. Effectively, the state space of the system has an upper limit w.r.t. the complexity of the molecules that can be present. In my approach, there is no such upper limit. So, you're bound to stray into the real of extreme complexity. More is needed to explain how this leads to life, but should be clear that the approach is fundamentally different.

    Saibal,

    Explained cogently, Saibal. Done well, considering you changed your topic shortly before submitting. My essay suggests the alkaline vent process for generating multi-celled life and context-driven goals for intelligent beings coupled with mindless laws like Jeremy's England's as a new concept. Where do mindless mathematical laws enter in your picture and where does agency and intent come in the equation? This was a quick read so I may have missed it.

    Best regards. Hope you get a chance to give your thoughts on my essay.

    Jim Hoover

      Jim, thanks for your comments. It sounds like your essay is going to be very interesting to read, I'll give you my comments as soon as I've read it.

      The question of where these higher level phenomena like intent come from was skimmed over a bit, it's in the introduction. So, the issue is then that the laws of physics seems to lack a notion of intent. But there is, of course, no doubt that humans act with intent, and that humans are also subject to the laws of physics. One can then argue that what is going on here is that a living organism is a higher level system that, while instantiated by the laws of physics, is able to implement its own algorithm.

      It's not all that different from saying that your computer does not violate the laws of physics and yet is able to run whatever algorithm fits in its memory, even if it looks like running some particular program would give the computer a property that doesn't seem to exist at the level of the fundamental laws of physics.

      To be able to run some arbitrary algorithm requires the system to have enough control over its immediate environment, there will be feedback loops making sure the programmed commands are indeed executed. So, what must then happen is that information at the higher level where the system exists, feeds back to control the state at lower levels to make sure the system keeps on working. Walker and Davies that I've cited in the introduction have written quite a few papers on this topic.

      Then what remains to be answered is how a system that isn't in such a state to begin with can start to exhibit such properties, so explaining how life started will automatically address the theme of the essay contest.

      This is an interesting hypothesis. I am not much of a planetary science maven so I can't judge its merits very easily. I did read a while back an idea for why the inner solar system has a lack of large planets. The idea stated the inner solar system had two Neptune sized or super-Earth planets. These ended up in a collision that send most of this material into the sun with a small percentage remaining to form Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. I do not know how that would fit into the idea of there being an early planet or proto-planet with highly eccentric orbit.

      Maybe the highly eccentric orbit planet was Mars. Its eccentricity is a bit large as it is, but by gravitational interactions maybe it has become less eccentric. So this might have been the terrestrial planetary left over from this smash-up that served this role.

      Again I can't judge this very well because I am not highly knowledgeable in this area. However, your paper seems worthy of being in the running.

      Cheers LC

      Saibal,

      Your essay is very interesting. It has always been a great mystery to me regarding how Earth proceeded from random chemicals into the simplest life form with the ability to replicate and capture the sun's energy. Your well written essay outlines one possibility.

      Given the difficulty of explaining how life began, I skipped this step and instead started with the existence of that first cell, and then worked up life's chain to aims and intentions. Two other milestones in the development path are the ability to recall past events and the ability to imagine.

      William Goodwin

      Lawrence and William, thank you both for your comments. I have seen Lawrence's essay a while back here, and I'll read William's essay as soon as I get the opportunity. It's interesting to address the essay theme from various starting points, William from the first cell, I tried to shed some lights on abiogenesis, but then Lawrence starts way at the beginning to explain why the universe is open, which is a crucial ingredient needed to make the universe habitable.

      Dear Saibal Mitra

      I invite you and every physicist to read my work "TIME ORIGIN,DEFINITION AND EMPIRICAL MEANING FOR PHYSICISTS, Héctor Daniel Gianni ,I'm not a physicist.

      How people interested in "Time" could feel about related things to the subject.

      1) Intellectuals interested in Time issues usually have a nice and creative wander for the unknown.

      2) They usually enjoy this wander of their searches around it.

      3) For millenniums this wander has been shared by a lot of creative people around the world.

      4) What if suddenly, something considered quasi impossible to be found or discovered such as "Time" definition and experimental meaning confronts them?

      5) Their reaction would be like, something unbelievable,... a kind of disappointment, probably interpreted as a loss of wander.....

      6) ....worst than that, if we say that what was found or discovered wasn't a viable theory, but a proved fact.

      7) Then it would become offensive to be part of the millenary problem solution, instead of being a reason for happiness and satisfaction.

      8) The reader approach to the news would be paradoxically adverse.

      9) Instead, I think it should be a nice welcome to discovery, to be received with opened arms and considered to be read with full attention.

      11)Time "existence" is exclusive as a "measuring system", its physical existence can't be proved by science, as the "time system" is. Experimentally "time" is "movement", we can prove that, showing that with clocks we measure "constant and uniform" movement and not "the so called Time".

      12)The original "time manuscript" has 23 pages, my manuscript in this contest has only 9 pages.

      I share this brief with people interested in "time" and with physicists who have been in sore need of this issue for the last 50 or 60 years.

      Héctor

      The word "life" in the title of the essay refers to microbes, basically the first lifeforms we know existed on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago. But, this cannot be the fundamental definition of life, defining life is part of the problem one has to tackle in order to explain how it arose (a point frequently made by researchers in this field).

      George Ellis explains in his essay and in some of his other writings that top down causation is a key feature of living organism. Suppose e.g. that you are in a car, there is a red traffic light, you slow down your car to stop at that traffic light. Then because you consist of molecules, what happened should be describable in terms of the molecules you consist of.

      Then apart from the sheer complexity making such an explanation not so practical, there is a more fundamental problem. If you trace down the processes at the molecular level that are involved in the chain of events in your brain that makes your brain give the command to hit the brake, that does not really provide for an explanation of why you decided to stop your car. It does not reproduce the higher level explanation in terms of you sticking to the traffic rules.

      Now, it's still true that everything that happens must in principle be explainable from the molecular level, but you then need to go beyond a simple tracing down of some key triggers that caused the brain to hit the brake. You need to reproduce the algorithm that the brain is actually running, the traffic rules are encoded in that algorithm. So, in the end all you would be doing is using the information at the molecular level to establish the fact that it was a person who knows about the traffic rules who was sitting in the car, and from that it follows that the higher level explanation is valid. So, the molecular level explanation ended up giving the same reason for why you hit the brakes.

      So, this then motivates defining life as a higher level system where the relevant information processing happens at that higher level. It is running algorithms that are only visible at that higher level. You may reduce it to its parts, but to understand why it did something you need to frame that in terms of the algorithms that are implemented.

      Now, I take a different view. The algorithm itself, of course, didn't come into existence just out of thin air. So, a complete explanation involves explaining where the information that defines the algorithm ultimate originated from. So, there does exist in principle in a meaningful explanation in terms of fundamental physics concepts.

      For life this means that I find the reverse of what I said at the start more appealing, i.e. an explanation of where what know is life (e.g. microbes) came from, will also provide for a definition of life. And then you are led to autocalytic processes. Now the people in favor of an algorithmic view at higher levels have made the point that there are trivial reproducing systems such as fire. But if you take a very deep look at such systems you'll find that it's not actually 100% trivial, a fire can only maintain itself and spread if there exists a region of stability. Compared to what we normally call "living organisms", it is indeed very trivial, but there are still feedback processes here that will make it going.

      So, being alive or not is framing things in the wrong way, it's much more a matter of the degree to which some system is alive. And there then does exist a huge difference between a fire and a microbe. Also, there is exists a class of systems ranging from animals down to microbes and even simpler system such that the simplest of such systems could eventually give rise to all the of the other systems in that class. This may have involved a special environment like a proto-planet where you have both warm and cold environments as I've argued in my essay.

      Dear Saibal Mitra,

      Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

      I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

      Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

      The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

      A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

      Joe Fisher, Realist

      Nice essay Dr Mitra ji,

      Your ideas and thinking on life formation on earth are excellent for eg...

      '1. Similarly, the solution I propose to get to the large biomolecules needed to kick start a system in the DKS state is to consider a natural process that leads to much larger molecules than the ones we're interested in.

      2. But, of course, life did not start on Earth, it started on precisely on of these proto-planets that was kicked out of its orbit far away from the Sun and entered a highly elliptic orbit bringing it periodically into the inner solar system, close to the Sun. etc...'

      A Good idea, I fully agree with you, even though in an entirely different subject ................................. I want you to ask you to please have a look at my essay, where ...............reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe is described. Dynamic Universe Model is another mathematical model for Universe. Its mathematics show that the movement of masses will be having a purpose or goal, Different Galaxies will be born and die (quench) etc...just have a look at my essay... "Distances, Locations, Ages and Reproduction of Galaxies in our Dynamic Universe" where UGF (Universal Gravitational force) acting on each and every mass, will create a direction and purpose of movement.....

      I think intension is inherited from Universe itself to all Biological systems

      For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.

      Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example 'Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary' (1994) , 'Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe', About "SITA" simulations, 'Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required', "New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations", "Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background", "Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.", in 2015 'Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, 'Explaining Pioneer anomaly', 'Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets', 'Observation of super luminal neutrinos', 'Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up', "Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto" etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.

      With axioms like... No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.

      Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain

      Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading...

      http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/

      Best wishes to your essay.

      For your blessings please................

      =snp. gupta

        Saibal Mitra,

        Your essay is on the topic (there are many essays that are off topic), your writing is clear, concise and can be understood by a general readership. Those points alone should make you one of the top ranked essays.

        If you look at Pluto and some of the comets, there appears to be complex organic compounds produced without the need for any warm places within the proto-planet. The building blocks of life can be produced in warm pools of water, but also appeared to be produced in the solid state in vacuum conditions at very cold temperature due to UV radiation breaking the bonds in methane. The process is slow, but seems to be common. Long chain molecules should similar to DNA could be a result of such a cryo (sp?) process. This process does fit in with thermodynamics because the stronger bond and folding of the long chain molecule is at a lower energy state.

        Best of luck with the contest,

        Jeff Schmitz

          Dar Joe, I'll read your essay and give my comments on your essay page.

          Dear Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta,

          Thank you for you comments on my essay. I'll read your essay and give any comments I may have on your essay page.

          Dear Jeff Schmitz,

          Thank you for your comments. These processes in cold near vacuum conditions under the influence of radiation are very interesting. This recent article:

          http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6282/208

          reports on the synthesis of ribose from water, methanol, and ammonia exposed to UV radiation. So, I agree that such processes seem to be very important, you can't just have only a warm environment where life is ultimately going to take hold, because then the essential molecules won't get synthesized ab initio. I suspect that for quite a while when life is in the processes of developing in the warm environment, the processes in the cold environment will be essential to fill in the missing gaps of the biochemistry in the warm environment.

          9 days later

          Hi Saibal,

          A very interesting way of stirring the pot....the large protoplanets with large elliptical orbits approach the Sun and get hot and cold. If I may add to this the added gravitation change effect, causing a sloshing effect.

          A short interesting and logical possibility. I like it.

          You may want to take a look at my website (www.digitalwavetheory.com). In particular the sections on gravity, dark matter and dark energy. I think you will find them cosmologically interesting.

          Thanks for your essay, (and visit my page if you get a chance)

          Don Limuti

            Dear Don,

            Thank you for posting your comments here. Sloshing effects may play a role too, but you then need forces that don't uniformly accelerate the object. You can think about impacts, or strong tidal forces. Who knows, if there is life on Jupiter's moon Europa, such sloshing effects due to tidal forces may be important for the biology there.

            I'll certainly take a look at your website!